Dear Kid Whisperer,

When a student "tattles," should you deal with it or ignore it?

Answer: I LOVE answering this question because this tends to be a HUGE problem in many classrooms, and it has an incredibly simple, air-tight answer.

First, I feel your pain. Before I developed the following simple strategy, I was in an impossible situation as I struggled to teach fifth and first grade, respectively. As you know, being presented with negative information by a kid about another kid or kids can really present some challenges and presents you with difficult questions:

Is this something I should deal with?

If I deal with it, aren’t I reinforcing tattling? If I reinforce it, won’t it happen more often?

Well, I know the answer is “yes,” obviously, but what if it is a big problem that I should solve? What if it’s a dangerous problem?

But what if I think it might be a big problem, but then it turns out to be nothing, and now I’ve wasted all this time, and now I’m not done benchmarking these kids and oh, geez it’s time for music and oh, yikes, I should have listened to my mother and become an accountant.

…at least that’s what went through my mind. These are all good, valid questions, and this strategy will help you successfully navigate them so you do not reinforce tattling and you do not ignore things that you should not ignore.

Here are two scenarios. Note that there is only one initial proper response to 100% of kids alerting you to something negative (at least in their minds) no matter how frivolous or dangerous or terrible it is.

Frivolous Scenario:

Kid: I feel that people are not sufficiently validating my opinions and this makes me feel “less than.”

Kid Whisperer: (calmly smiling) Thanks for sharing that with me.

That’s it. This is a “problem” that this kid can handle. We can guide kids to solve that problem through a strategy called Learned Autonomy if and when we have time, but no further action is necessary. Dealing with the Frivolous Scenario this way says to kids, “I love you, you are capable, and this is your problem.”

Potentially Serious or Even Potentially Dangerous Scenario:

Kid #1: I think Kid #2 has a knife in his bag.

Kid Whisperer: (calmly smiling) Thanks for sharing that with me.

Kid Whisperer calmly and immediately checks the bag, or has another person check the bag in alignment with any procedures outlined in school policies. If a weapon is found, policies are followed, calmly. Saying the same thing every time will keep you calm in a tough situation. No school policy says “Step #3: Panic.”

If nothing is found, and there is no threat, Kid Whisperer gets back to teaching. If further investigation is necessary, that can be done later, as long as that conforms to school policies.

Of course, a vast majority of scenarios will involve a situation somewhere between Totally Frivolous and Probably Dangerous, more like “Kid has Pokémon cards” or “Kid is humming softly, and no one can get their work done.” In these cases, we still react with the same initial script, but we calmly take action at any time other than reacting immediately, according to the teacher’s best judgment.

Just keep that initial script on the tip of your tongue (write it on a post-it if you need to) and you’ll stay calmer while making tattling a non-functional behavior.

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